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Trying to Get Calbridge To Finish Their Job

I have always been of the belief that when someone does me a favour ... or two or three ... when that someone asks for a small favour of me in return, I do my best to accommodate that someone. You know, I scratch your back and you scratch mine. My wife and I did Calbridge several favours over many days at the cost of hundreds of dollars to us in lost income but the Construction and Customer Care Manager couldn't give us two or three hours of their time. I guess Calbridge has an awfully itchy back. Here's what happened:

When we first bought our house we were told that over the course of our first year of occupancy little blemishes will appear because of such things as the house settling. With that in mind we were told that Calbridge would hold what they called a "Trades Day" approximately a year after we had taken possession of the house. In one day tradespeople will show up at our home and repair all those little blemishes and my wife and I will be quite satisfied with the work done on our home.

When Covid hit my wife and I received an e-mail from LL (the then Construction and Customer Care Manager) notifying us that Calbridge had decided to suspend non-emergency service visits.

Of course my wife and I would cooperate! This was an international emergency such as had not been seen in a century. People's health and well being came before any little inconveniences my wife and I may have had. So we waited.

It took a few months before Calbridge could resume their service visits. We received another e-mail from LL explaining that Calbridge would not be allowing the contractors in all at once during a "Trades Day" but instead would be having the contractors come in one at a time. This meant that either my wife or I would have to take time off from work to let each contractor into our house.

Once again my wife and I were more than willing to cooperate even though it cost us several hundred dollars in lost income. But we did our share to keep Calbridge contractors safe.

Finally the workers came in. There was lots to do. One at a time they came in. For the most part, the issues that were actually addressed were done well. Sure the plumber forgot to hook up a drain pipe from the main bathroom sink which caused a huge mess but they came back and fixed it but, again, my wife had to take more time off work to accommodate them. More lost money but, hey, sh** happens, right? Nothing to get my knickers in a twist over. The painter was a young lady putting herself through school and she tried her best, I'm sure, but her inexperience showed. We got drywall mud and paint on our carpet when she tried to fix the drywall close to our carpet on the stairs. Several other things were not done properly and some items were not addressed at all.

Then the contractors stopped coming over. No calls. No e-mails. No nothing. Just stopped. Some work that had been addressed was done poorly. Some work was not addressed at all. It seemed we had been left out to dry.

After waiting patiently some weeks my wife sent an e-mail to Calbridge saying some items have been addressed and some items were still outstanding. When would these outstanding items be addressed?

No response.

After allowing some few weeks for Calbridge to respond she sent another e-mail again asking when the outstanding items would be addressed.

No response.

Again she waited weeks and again she tried contacting Calbridge. She worried that Calbridge could not understand her English (my wife is Chinese) so she copied what I had written to her regarding outstanding issues and included pictures of the work that needed to be done and ...

Ignored again.

By this time a few months had passed with no communication from Calbridge so I decided to disregard the instructions from the president of Calbridge to, "not contact Calbridge Homes Ltd. nor LaVita Land Inc. in any capacity in the future." (Click here for the story on that) and, on September 12, 2021, I e-mailed them myself stating, "I insist that a qualified person employed directly by Calbridge send a written response to this e-mail outlining a reasonable plan to finally get all the outstanding work on our house completed. I feel I am being quite reasonable to further insist I receive this plan no later than September 17. 2021."

Two days later Calbridge responded and told me, "We have received your email. We are taking a moment to look into your concerns and review what currently remains open with your warranty status ... This will require a couple days to gather the information and we will get back to you this week."

A very reasonable reply but, needless to say, this didn't happen. "This week" came to an end and it was not until the end of the following week that we were told that somebody named CW, "will respond to you personally about your file early next week, at the latest on Tuesday."

Okay, they took longer than they promised but, still, maybe we're going to get the outstanding work done.

Sure enough, CW, whose e-mail footer indicated that he was a Field Manager for Calbridge reached out and asked when we could meet, "in the next week or two."

Yay! We're finally going to get the work done!

Ah, the dreams of a new home owner! Calbridge seemed to be only getting ramped up with ignoring their promise:

"Our homeowners are what drive our business and providing an exceptional experience is our duty to them. Whether it’s our staff, partners, trades, or customers, we align ourselves with those who share a common goal – to always do the right thing."

CW Steps In

According to his profile on LinkedIn CW is a journeyman carpenter with a red seal. It appears he started his career at Calbridge as an Assistant Site Supervisor in April, 2015 then moved up to Site Supervisor in June 2016. After that he became Field Manager in February, 2021 and then to Construction and Customer Care Manager in October, 2021. He has also taken a 20 hour "Certified Mold Inspector, Mold Inspection" course.

After CW's offer to meet with me I agreed and told him that I would be available any weekend given a little notice.

But, no, CW wrote back and said, "We are not available to meet on the weekends. I am good to meet between 8am and 3pm Monday to Friday, as long as I do not have any scheduling conflicts."

I wrote back and told them that Calbridge had already used more of my time than they had originally promised. How a single "Trades Day" had expanded to several days without complaint from my wife and I told them that for, "me to take more time off work is not only a loss of money to rehash what has already been re-hashed but it is also a major inconvenience to me, to my co-workers, our management team and our customers." I explained that I had already told two different Calbridge representatives what needed to be done and that all was noted and promises made to complete the work that needed to be done. I suggested that Calbridge had, "seriously 'dropped the ball' when it comes to customer service. A professional company interested in maintaining good relations with previous customers that have more that accommodated them during this Covid situation should reciprocate what my wife and I have done and have somebody meet with us during a weekend." I asked that if, "Calbridge continues to insist that they will not accommodate us in this request, I must insist on getting from them a written reason why they will not have a Calbridge representative meet with us at a reasonable time convenient to my wife and I." I ended my e-mail by reminding them of their own motto: "Our homeowners are what drive our business and providing an exceptional experience is our duty to them. Whether it’s our staff, partners, trades, or customers, we align ourselves with those who share a common goal – to always do the right thing ... My wife and I have done the right thing. Several times. Now it's Calbridge's turn"

But CW seemingly was not to be swayed saying, "our staff, including myself are not available to meet with homeowners on weekends "

He offered to meet me only on a weekday as early as 0700h or as late as 1630h.

But my job was such that, if I am late, I take the whole day off. I can't go home early. As a professional driver I can't expect loads to wait for my convenience. So I told him that I have to leave home for work at 0645h at the latest and I don't get back home until 1830h at the earliest. I reminded him that my wife and I had already done our part in telling previous Calbridge site managers what needed to be done right from the time of our first inspection. Again I said, "talk to your management team and if they are unwilling to send a qualified representative on a day where I don't have to take even more time off work then I want a written reason why. Not from you since I am asking you to move this situation up the ladder so to speak. I want an answer from the Calbridge management team making the decision on when they can meet with me to finally get this work done properly."

CW's answer: "I am not able to have anyone from Calbridge Homes visit your home outside of business hours."

Now CW's e-mail footer showed that he was a Construction and Customer Care Manager and no longer Field Manager.

So twice now I've asked for a reason why nobody from Calbridge will meet with me on a weekend. In all my adult life I have never held a job that was absolutely unable to work outside business hours. As a young man I worked in a shingle factory that worked weekends and holidays to meet customer demands. When I was an apprentice carpenter I would work extra hours to help get the job done on time. As a flight instructor I would accommodate a student's needs to take lessons outside normal times to suit their work schedule. As an engineer I would work with a team that would work whatever hours it took to fulfill the clients' needs. Even now, as a semi-retired baby boomer truck driver I work with a team that works holidays and weekends (especially during peak season) to meet our clients' needs. So why can't Calbridge? So I reminded him yet again of all that my wife and I had been through then ended the e-mail, "Let your manager or supervisor or whoever overlooks your job explain to me why they write something like this on the Calbridge website: 'Our homeowners are what drive our business and providing an exceptional experience is our duty to them. Whether it’s our staff, partners, trades, or customers, we align ourselves with those who share a common goal – to always do the right thing.' Yet, when the time comes to honour that statement we get subpar service and Calbridge refuses to do the right thing. This is not a rhetorical question. Why does Calbridge write something like this on their website then refuse to honour their own words? I sincerly (sic) want that question addressed."

But again, CW did not answer the question as to why nobody at Calbridge would meet with me on a weekend. Instead he wrote, "Calbridge does not set up appointments on the weekends or holidays. Our appointment hours are 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Monday-Friday. I have offered to meet with you as early as 7am or as late as 4:30pm, but meeting on a weekend or holiday is not an option. My role with the company is Construction and Customer Care Manager, so this decision sits with me."

Really this is getting ridiculous. CW seemingly not only refuses to answer why he won't meet with me on a weekend but now it appears to me that he's letting me know that he's the boss and won't discuss it with anybody higher. So I sent another e-mail:, "Surely you report to somebody. Have that somebody tell me in writing why I should lose more money because of Calbridge's failures. I don't care if it is the president of Calbridge herself. And, as I asked before, I want the answer to my request to specifically address the Calbridge statement, 'Our homeowners are what drive our business and providing an exceptional experience is our duty to them. Whether it’s our staff, partners, trades, or customers, we align ourselves with those who share a common goal – to always do the right thing.'

"I want to have explained to me how it is the right thing to ignore our e-mails requesting service, to not provide the promised work and to insist on having my family lose more money so that Calbridge can once more be shown the work that needs to me done. The work that we have already shown Calbridge representatives in previous meeting where I missed work."

So CW seemingly did what has been tried and tested before by Calbridge. He did not answer my e-mail.

Needless to say this was getting frustrating for me. After all that my wife and I have done to accommodate Calbridge they can't give me two hours of their time and now they've decided to just stop answering me in the seeming hope that I'll just go away. So I sent another e-mail to him telling him just how much we have helped Calbridge from them time we moved in when they used our property without asking (see Never Talk to Us Again!) to the all the money we have lost keeping Calbridge contractors safe - at least those contractors that showed up. Yet another e-mail was sent: "It has been over two weeks since I sent the below e-mail and, as so often happens dealing with Calbridge, it has gone unanswered. Yet. Again. My questions I asked in the previous e-mails were not rhetorical and a professional company who values their customers should have no trouble answering them immediately. If Calbridge cannot reconcile the service I have received with their own mission statement then I think the company has a very serious problem." After pointing out the many things my wife and I endured to help Calbridge I ended the e-mail saying: " ... when we insist that we have done our part and explained WHY we think we have done our part, all we get from you is a rather curt, "meeting on a weekend or holiday is not an option." No reasons were given despite being asked several times now. Sure, you gave an offer to meet slightly outside your normal little five hour window but that pales in light of all the extra things we have done to accommodate Calbridge. It is absolutely mind boggling that a Calbridge customer is not worth an hour or two on a weekend to save that customer losing an entire's day pay. Absolutey (sic) mind boggling. And when it is taken into consideration that this meeting is needed because of failures by Calbridge it makes it absolutely unbelievable. In essence you are telling me that me, your customer, must lose more money because Calbridge did not do their job. Absolutely unbelievable.

"So if it is your intention to continue to ignore me then have the bloody decency to tell me. If you have moved this matter up the ladder so to speak have the professionalism to tell me who is taking care of this now and follow up with that person. Continuing to ignore me will not make me or the problem go away. In fact I can almost guarantee that the problem will only get worse.

"If you do decide to finally answer my questions, I urge you to remember that I will continue to share this correspondence with anyone interested. If you don't answer my questions then to me and to everyone else, it will be a tacit admission of extremely poor customer service."

And finally I got an answer to why Calbridge will not meet with me on a weekend. CW wrote: "Calbridge Homes is a business that operates within set business hours, like any other company that offers a product or service. Therefore, we are not able to set appointments on weekends or after hours. When buying a home, there will be deficiencies that need to be addressed and these appointments are booked in during business hours."

But I've already had three meetings with Calbridge site supervisors and these were held during Calbridge business hours costing me three days of lost pay! How many more meetings does it take to get the message across? How much more money will I have to lose? And, Lord!, what a weak excuse! Calbridge is "not able" to set appointments outside business hours? C'mon, folks, how stupid do you think I am? More like "unwilling" to do extra for their customers who have put out so much for them! But, hey, maybe CW didn't know I'd already had three appointments but, when I told him so he merely replied, "I am aware that you have met with Calbridge representatives in the past, and while I understand that you are not happy with some of the outcomes and you feel that some items have been ignored, our stance on when we book appointments will not change. If you would like to schedule a time within business hours, please let me know."

Summary

So there you go. Calbridge used part of our property for weeks while building the house next to us without even asking us. We lost literally hundreds of dollars in lost income accommodating Calbridge during the Covid crisis. And when we get what I feel is subpar work done on our home we get ... nothing from Calbridge. When work they promised to do is not done at all Calbridge just shrugs and tells us we can lose a few more hundred dollars because they won't work outside their regular working hours. It was as though they were ...

Despite asking several times for CW or anybody else at Calbridge to reconcile the way they were treating my wife and I to their company motto:

They never did. Or they never could. All I heard was ...

CW was seemingly generous enough to allow us to wait until I had vacation time so I wouldn't lose any work time. We had our meeting and that, my friends, was an event worthy of being on the Ugly page! I'll be writing about that soon so visit my site later to see what happened there! One of the things he told me was, in the words of Calbridge's own contractors, "a line of absolute bullsh**!"

Yup, that's the way to treat a customer!

To me, the right thing for Calbridge to have done was to take two hours to meet with me. After all my wife and I had done so very much for them the least they could have done was to take two lousy hours of their time. In doing what he did, CW did not only show how little Calbridge valued their customers he also set up a very adversarial relationship between he and I.

What do you think? Did Calbridge live up to its promise to "always do the right thing?" Share your views in the Reader's Comments section.